U.S. Hospitals Need to Study How Well Remdesivir Really Works
With only limited evidence of effectiveness, the drug should be put to a large clinical trial.
It’s not yet clear how well this works.
Photographer: Ulrich Perrey/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
For months, hospitals have suffered the consequences of the country’s pandemic blunders. Intensive-care units have overflowed. Medical staff have struggled to get personal protective equipment, and have worked beyond exhaustion. It seems unfair to ask them to make up for another government misstep. But U.S. hospitals need to band together to run a clinical trial of the Covid-19 treatment remdesivir, even though the Trump administration has already decided the drug is what all hospitals should be using, going so far as to corner the worldwide market for it.
Under the government’s deal with Gilead Sciences Inc., hospitals pay $3,200 per course of treatment for the antiviral drug — which is about 33% more than governments of other countries are to be charged. (The lower price will be available only to Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service and a handful of other U.S. government insurers, covering about 4% of the population.)